Shell LiveWIRE energy innovator helps to make the future

Shell LiveWIRE energy innovator Capture Mobility, which converts traffic turbulence into electricity, recently joined forces with Shell at Make the Future Singapore to run a special accelerator designed to enable entrepreneurs to turn their bright energy ideas into businesses that can expand across Asia.

Involving talks, strategy sessions and brainstorm discussions with experts from government, investors, the clean tech sector, Singapore’s thriving start-up scene, and the media, the Shell #makethefuture Accelerator provided a platform for 70 entrepreneurs to share their challenges and to get inspiration to expand their thinking.

During the accelerator, Capture Mobility, along with Chinese enterprise, MotionEco, that transforms waste cooking oil into sustainable biofuels, shared their business story to date including their successes, experiences and the challenges they faced in scaling their business model.

In addition to inspiring the energy start-ups in attendance with their business story, Capture Mobility also provided them with their unique insight, expertise and potential solutions to the challenges they are facing.

Commenting on his involvement in the accelerator, Sanwal Muneer, Director of Capture Mobility, said, “During the accelerator, I shared our challenges and experiences and it was very informative to listen to the perspective of other entrepreneurs.

“Different solutions and ideas about the challenges faced by Capture Mobility were discussed, which enabled people to understand the perspective of various stakeholders.

“I believe the accelerator has equipped many of the energy entrepreneurs with some new solutions and approaches which will enable them to overcome their challenges in order to scale up and expand their businesses throughout the region.”

Participating in the accelerator and showcasing the business at Make the Future also delivered benefits for Capture Mobility, and Sanwal summed this up by saying, “The accelerator was an extremely useful learning experience which will inform our strategy for expansion into the Asian market, including dealing with governments.

“Capture Mobility’s attendance gained a lot of traction in the media, and we are pursuing some very promising leads from potential partners who visited our display.”

Capture Mobility has invented a wind turbine that harvests the energy from moving air caused by passing traffic on busy roads and motorways, turning it into electricity. The turbines are topped with solar panels to augment the power generated, and contain air filters to absorb pollution from traffic emissions. The company, which started life in Pakistan before relocating to Scotland to work with the Scottish Government, is also working with Shell to install turbines along a busy stretch of road to provide energy for a local community.

Commenting on how his company and other clean energy start-ups can contribute solutions to the energy challenge, Sanwal said, “The current energy resources are not enough to cope with the growing energy demands, so it is important for us to find as many energy resources as we can.

“We need to have multiple approaches to tackle the energy challenges and imaginative start-ups will provide some of the most innovative solutions.

“This will form the baseline for big ideas and big companies to form smart cities.”

Speaking about his collaboration with Shell, Sanwal said, “Capture Mobility’s vision is to be a company that develops a range of innovative green energy solutions, and we have different ideas in the pipeline.

“With this comes the responsibility to make your products market ready. So, that’s exactly what we are doing with the support from Shell to market our product and to do multiple demonstration projects.”

Sanwal is also very appreciative of the support he has received from Shell LiveWIRE, including the initial assistance provided by Shell Tameer while he was developing the company in Pakistan. Sanwal said, “Shell Tameer was the springboard for me that made me realise the potential of my company. The support I got from Tameer helped me to prototype my idea and develop it into a commercially viable product.

“I really appreciate the ongoing support from Shell LiveWIRE, which is very rare in other enterprise programmes, where they continue to support your growth and market you.”

The first-ever Make the Future Singapore, which took place at the Changi Exhibition Centre, provided a festival of ideas and innovations for Asia that supports bright energy ideas and provides a platform for innovation, collaboration and conversation about the global energy challenge. Through virtual reality and hands-on experiential zones, visitors were able to explore what is happening now and see what the future of energy might look like, from renewable energy to natural gas and low-carbon technologies; learning about bright ideas from around Asia; and, participating in interactive zones about the future of energy, mobility and innovation by Shell and other partners.

Shell’s Make the Future festivals of ideas and innovation are a global initiative with events in Asia, America and Europe. The Asia event has the widest geographical reach with 20 countries participating, accounting for more than 60% of the world’s population.

Capture Mobility is one of the bright energy ideas that features in Shell Make the Future’s Best Day of My Life music video which has been viewed globally over 800m times, and was named the top viral music chart for 2016.